All Fall Down
by X-criss-cross-applesauce-X
Summary: Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.


_**Read and Review. All rights go to Suzanne Collins.**_

**Title: All Fall Down **

**Summary: Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.**

**Rated: T**

**Word Count: 715**

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Four or five children, no older than the age of six, dance around in a circle, singing a song.

_"Ring around the rosy, _

_A pocket full of posies; _

_Ashes, ashes, _

_We all fall down."_

They collapse on the ground in a fit of laughter, ignoring the TV screen and what's about to unfold in front of everyone in the nation. They don't understand. Soon, though, they'll have a rude awakening. You sigh from your perch up on the table at the local market. These children don't understand the true meaning of the song. They think it's a happy little jingle for happy little kids. What is happy, anyway?

You know that's not really what the song is. It's about the one thing that no one can escape. The one thing that signals the end. The real end.

_Death._

It's rumored in your district that the people before you, before Panem, sang this song about a fever. A plague that swept through their nation (they had called it a "country") and took the lives of many.

There's a plague around you now. A deadly one. However, it isn't a sickness. It's worse. The Capitol causes it. There seems to be no cure. No doctor, not even the finest, can even diagnose it as a disease.

The Hunger Games.

You scowl at the thought of those cursed "games". They're going on right now, as a matter of fact. The little girl and the powerhouse boy were tributes this year. You know both of them, they're both kind souls, and neither of them deserved to be tributes.

The teenagers have just been raised into the arena. They are all glancing around, sizing up their competition and developing strategies. The song lyrics come back to your head, searing through your mind, curling around your thoughts.

_Ring around the rosy,_

The arena is themed as the woods this year. The tributes are circled in a large clearing, the Cornucopia tempting them to take the goods and supplies pouring from its mouth.

_Don't go for it,_ You mentally urge the two kids representing your district, _That would mean certain death._

_Death._

Not from a real sickness. Something just as bad, though. It's contagious. One person in the Capitol decided on this wretched idea after the revolt of your ancestors. Others agreed, and they signed the Treaty of Treason. The disease spread all throughout Panem. Soon every district competed in the Hunger Games.

The countdown ends, and the tributes are off. Only two run for the woods. You keep track of the dead kids, though many have gathered supplies and are off by now.

_A pocket full of posies;_

One. Two. Three. The first minute of the game, and three tributes are dead.

Four, five. Two go down at the same time.

Two of the smaller tributes are ducked behind the mountain of supplies in the Cornucopia, waiting for the right moment to escape. After only five more minutes, the bloodbath is nearly over. You've counted nine dead tributes so far. The two small kids are still in the Cornucopia waiting for the careers to leave.

_Ashes, ashes,_

They're dead within three more minutes, along with many others. Half the tributes are dead, lying around the ground in pools of blood. Red stains the green grass, and you can only think of what else you've learned in school, about a holiday that used to be celebrated. Christmas. Red and green were happy colors. Though, they don't look so happy in this case.

The tributes that've made it to the woods probably won't last long. The careers will kill them, and then the teens in the powerhouse alliance will turn on each other until there is one victor.

It's a disease.

It's contagious.

It's affected all of Panem and it will never end. There will always be Hunger Games. Everyone will die. No one is safe. You can only pray that you and your family will be safer than others.

_We all fall down._

* * *

**Well, I've had a bit of writer's block for _Permanent. _Figured I could work on a one-shot/drabble. **

**What did you think? I never got super... _into _THG. They were definitely good, don't get me wrong! It's just, PJO is more my thing. I'm not super proud of this, honestly. You tell me. Leave a review?**

**Athankya, darling. And don't forget:**

**X-apples are delicious-X**


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